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Digital workplace as a tool in employee performance

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It’s still amazing how easy it is to get information today. Think about the simplicity of getting information to make a purchase or plan a vacation trip online. Our behavior has changed as fast as the technology that has helped us gain nearly unfettered access to information to make better and quicker decisions.

Who are these banking customers? Millennials, specifically, and they are creating a huge challenge for banks as they form a difficult segment to reach and engage. This reality becomes clear in these interesting stats in recent research by Scratch:

There are 80 million Millennials in the USA alone and 70%+ of them are NOT interested in a conversation with traditional banks.

But what about inside the bank? Are millennials impacting how banks work on the inside? I don’t see this topic explored as much as customer behavior. But how banks transform their employee experience may be just as important as how they transform customer experience.

An even more interesting (and worrisome) characteristic around millennials and the changing workforce: more than 40% of the workforce will be contractors by 2020 (this is sometimes referred to as a liquid workforce). It means that there soon will be an entire professional generation oriented to flexible working: schedule, projects and priorities. This is a generation that values the quality of delivery instead of workspace. Delivery means the same unfettered access to information as Millennials experience in their personal lives. Millennials won’t accept working for a company that blocks access to whatever makes them more productive, anywhere, anytime. This reality affects how banks have to change on the inside and improve employee performance [CLICK TO TWEET].

Are Banks Ready to Support This Change on The Inside?

Most banks are in a quest to control and reduce costs, aiming for a 35-45% of cost-income ratio. Nevertheless, at the same time, banks need to invest in their next-generation of employees to make sure they can deliver value to customers. An efficient, connected work environment is essential to meeting those goals, and that involves a shift from the siloed systems and process models that have traditionally characterized the way many banks work.

Digital Workplace for Branch Manager

So Where Do Banks Start on Their Journey to The Next-Generation Workplace?

With many digital workplace initiatives, the technology solution takes precedent and the transformation does not place the proper emphasis on understanding and designing for employee needs.

At Avanade, we recommend a decidedly different approach to digital workplace transformation. The approach suggested is to align technology-driven efforts with the understanding of how to improve employee experience based on their needs.

This transformational approach is grounded in understanding how employees deliver their daily work today and how they will do it again tomorrow, by unlocking the full potential of a bank’s workforce. Developing this understanding means looking at the tools, processes and colleague interactions that employees need to deliver. Once this knowledge is harnessed, and analyzed against generational change, digital technology recommendations can be made to improve employee engagement and productivity.

At Avanade, we firmly believe that a Digital Advisory is a critical piece of this puzzle to help our clients succeed on their employee experience transformation journey. We combine modern techniques of workplace insights, design thinking, ideation and prototyping to design the most productive and highest-performing workplace according with our client’s workforce profile and business objectives.

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